Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party compared

Both are grassroots populist movements with a common anger at bailed-out banks, but where does the resemblance end?

The Occupy Wall Street protests continue with hundreds of union members joining the march at Zuccotti Park while students walk out against rising tuition fees and levels of student debt. Photograph: guardian.co.uk/Reuters

At a glance, all popular risings look alike with their crowds, banners and noise. But look a little closer and they can be as different as the peoples and cultures that comprise a society. The Tea Party, under one name or another, has actually been part of American politics for a long time. It is a movement that yearns for the restoration of an imaginary past, when the world was simple, men were men, women were women, leaders were white males, when the church steeple reigned over little towns and, aside from vaudeville, minorities had no public presence. Consistently, the Tea Party sympathisers in American politics today are almost all white, and they are better-off and older than the general population. That is why they chant "Take it back! Take it back! Take it back!" at their rallies. And their politics of hazy nostalgia is also why they are eagerly supported by rightwing business leaders.

By contrast, the Occupy Wall Street people are mainly young, racially diverse, happily countercultural and, above all, eagerly inclusive. And contrary to early media reports, they are thoughtful and well-informed. Where Tea Partiers chanted confused slogans like "Get government's hands off my Medicare!", the Occupy Wall Street protesters issue well thought-out proclamations about a future defined by cooperation and a democracy freed from the clutches of economic oligarchy. And they invite Joseph Stiglitz to address their general assembly.

I, for one, have been waiting for a protest movement that includes the young, working people, minorities and the poor, and I think it's begun.

Frances Fox Piven is a professor of political science and sociology at the graduate centre, CUNY

James Antle: 'Frustrated, principled activism that comes from the same side as the incumbent president'

When Sarah Palin announced she was bowing out of the 2012 presidential race, she took a moment to denounce "crony capitalism" and call for the elimination of all corporate welfare. Palin's image as the queen of the Tea Party isn't just a media creation. A Politico exit poll of a major Tea Party event last April found that she was the most popular politician among those in attendance.

Ron Paul, who finished second in that poll, has broken far more decisively with George W Bush's Republican party on war, foreign policy, the Federal Reserve, targeted assassinations and civil liberties than President Barack Obama has. Yet, the most powerful currents moving against managed capitalism and the national security state may exist on the left. The forces behind Occupy Wall Street could be like the Paul supporters who held the earliest Tea Party events before Bush left the White House – a sign of frustrated, principled activism that comes from the same side of the political spectrum as the incumbent president.

Though the Tea Party movement was started by people to the right of Bush, it had far greater potential once he had been replaced by a liberal Democrat. Similarly, Occupy Wall Street has been started by those to the left of Obama, but it could grow into something more under a conservative Republican president. In both cases, partisanship can both help and hinder what the original activists were trying to accomplish.

On issues like auditing the Federal Reserve, cutting corporate welfare and opposing bank bailouts, the two movements are surprisingly simpatico. On others, they are polar opposites: the populist right wants to restore the pre-New Deal federal government; the progressive left the pre-Reagan government. Just as with the Tea Party, it will take time to establish whether this is a mass movement or just kids in the street; Astroturf or grassroots.

James Antle is associate editor of the American Spectator and a contributing editor to the American Conservative

Eric Alterman: 'Such movements tend to boomerang, as the Republicans are learning now with the Tea Party'

The Occupy Wall Street movement represents the first genuine attempt to recreate some popular pressure from the left in this post-Obama political space, where the president is no less identified in the public mind with those whom Teddy Roosevelt called "malefactors of great wealth", and to put some fighting spirit back into the progressive movement.

Thing is, such movements tend to boomerang, as the Republicans are learning now as they are led by the nose by nutty and increasingly unpopular Tea Party types. During Vietnam, while most Americans came to oppose the war, they supported the president who pursued it because they found themselves so offended by the antics of those who burned flags and chanted pro-communist slogans. For the Occupy Wall Street movement to succeed, it needs to show the country a reasonable – dare I say, "respectable" – face to which they can relate and feel, if not represented by, than at least comfortable with.

Dredlocked rastas and tattooed anarchists may have gotten this thing going, but if they want to see it do any real good, they're going to have to step aside for clean-cut students, housewives, labor union members and families with underwater mortgages. I'm hopeful, but hardly optimistic.

Eric Alterman is professor of English and journalism at Brooklyn College and CUNY graduate school of journalism, and a columnist for the Nation

Doug Guetzloe: 'Both groups may have hit a chord with their call for reform of Wall Street'

Activists from what has come to be known as Occupy Wall Street have rattled the seemingly impenetrable bastions of Wall Street and shaken the political and financial bosses over the past several weeks. What's interesting is not whether or not they are "organised" or "spontaneous" – nothing in politics is spontaneous, so that's an easy issue to settle immediately – but if the Occupy groups share any common threads with the amorphous modern-day Tea Party movement.

Reform, whether in finance, government or corporate greed, is the common ground between the left and the right. Taking to the streets is a tactic that has been successfully utilised by both movements and has been accompanied by the requisite news coverage that goes with any populist revolt able to provide "visuals" for the ubiquitous 24/7 news cycle. As the media responds in predictable fashion, showering both groups with coverage that covers the drama of the streets, the similarity between the seemingly divergent groups becomes more evident.

The radicals on the left clearly come from divergent backgrounds and provide a dramatic contrast to the right-of-centre Tea Party movement activists, but on several major issues both groups may have hit a responsive chord in their call for reforms of Wall Street: less big government; less corporate largesse and more latitude to the nation's consumers.

Doug Guetzloe is chairman of the Florida Tea Party Patriots

Ayesha Kazmi: 'The doors are open to Tea Partiers who may discover solidarity in a crumbling economy'

Posing the various Occupy movements as an alternative to the Tea Party is a media oversimplification to fit the current movements within an easily comprehensible narrative. In fact, the Occupy movements are as confusing to media observers as they are to the organising bodies of activists who span a wide range on the political spectrum.

It's true that the Occupy movements display a similar foundational theme as the Tea Party, originating as grassroots rallying around grievances over corruption and high-finance's irresponsibility. But many within the Occupy movements, in contrast to the Tea Party members integrated into the Republican party, are entirely disillusioned with their supposed sympathisers in the Democratic party. They appear fiercely resistant to the idea of allowing the movement to be "co-opted" by Democrats, particularly in light of upcoming US elections.

At the same time, to portray the two movements as opposite and opposed to each other does a disservice the Occupy mission since many within the movement identify Tea Party activists as part of the 99%. There are differing opinions among Occupy activists about whether or not to appeal to Tea Partiers, but Occupy activists explicitly contest any oversimplification that paints the two movements as "enemies" of one another.

The broad political spectrum represented at the Occupy protests – and their all-encompassing agendas the public find maddeningly vague – are the movement's very strength. It leaves the doors open to Marxists, libertarians, communists, anarchists and even traditional conservatives – all of whom happen to be present – and perhaps even, potentially, Tea Partiers – who may discover solidarity in a crumbling economy while articulating their voicelessness in attempting to rectify it.

If the Occupy movements successfully ward off co-option, they may come to be seen as the Tea Party done right.

Ayeska Kazmi is a US-based researcher for Cage Prisoners. She has been reporting on Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Boston since their inception

Sally Kohn: 'A striking number of Tea Party members feel just as angry at Wall Street-driven inequality'

Occupy Wall Street is not the progressive response to the Tea Party. It's America's response to the criminal greed and recklessness of Wall Street.

A conservative activist who regularly sends me emails that Islam is inherently evil and Obama's birthplace is still in question recently has been re-posting videos and articles about Occupy Wall Street. "Do you support the protests," I asked her.

"Yes, in most respects. I think the banksters are raping the world," she wrote. "I am not against capitalism per se. It helped make this country great but the corporations got greedy and power hungry and have way too much power worldwide." This from someone who also sends emails discouraging the intermingling of races.

Millions of self-proclaimed liberals are embracing the critique and spirit of Occupy Wall Street. But so are a striking number of libertarians, conservatives and Tea Party members, who feel just as angry at Wall Street-driven inequality and are equally desperate for an economy and political system that puts ordinary Americans first.

Yet, in one key sense, Occupy Wall Street is a vital counter to the Tea Party. The Tea Party manipulates economic anxiety and racial resentment to advance the long-held conservative goal of undermining government, which only makes inequality worse and expands the power and purse of big business. Rather than misdirecting and exploiting the fear of ordinary Americans, Occupy Wall Street channels our collective anxiety and anger at its source: the Wall Street titans who broke our economy yet somehow continue to reap record profits while the rest of us suffer.

No more make-believe Tea Parties. It's time to get serious about holding Wall Street accountable and making our economy work for all of us.

Sally Kohn is a community organiser turned political commentator. She is a regular guest on Fox News and MSNBC

Douglas Rushkoff: 'As coherent an articulation of our economic problem as any I have seen in my lifetime'

As America swells with Occupy Wall Street protests, pundits and politicians are still pretending to be confused by the whole thing. But the movement is as coherent an articulation of our economic problem as any I have seen in my lifetime. Unlike the Tea Party, who see themselves as the customers of government, people in the Occupy Wall Street movement understand that we are the government. Stated most simply, we are trying to run a 21st-century society on a 13th-century economic operating system. It just doesn't work.

So, here in America, we've got ourselves in a situation where we produce well more than everything we need without even employing all our people. Our banks are demolishing foreclosed homes and our agriculture is destroying food in order to keep market prices high. We don't need jobs because there's work to be done; we need jobs so that we have a rationale for distributing the goods that are already in abundance.

Of course, creating such unnecessary jobs and surplus productivity just depletes the environment that much faster, increases our stress, and distracts us from the possibility of meaningful living. Meanwhile, the cash and commodities we use are manipulated by trading algorithms operating beyond any human being's comprehension, whose sole purpose is to extract value from human beings and redirect it to the wealthiest classes of passive investors.

This may have been the original intention of the aristocracy that put the centralised corporate banking monopoly in place back in the 12th century, but even they never imagined this system working so completely. Those in the thrall of the system see it as nature. To call attention to its design flaws is confusing and threatening to those who see markets as pre-existing conditions of nature rather than playing fields designed by people.

The participants of Occupy Wall Street are modelling not just a new form of open-ended, patient activism (in the face of a Tea Party that grasps for answers before it has even articulated any questions), but also a post-market, collaborative approach to creating and exchanging value.

This is the thing that will replace what we now think of as the economy – one way or the other.